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Before the expiration of the forty days, the Apostles returned again to Jerusalem, where the Risen Christ had previously appeared to them. There He made it clear that His companionship with them was past; His influence would now be in heaven. But before taking leave, He reiterated the importance of prophecy and history. No one before was ever pre-announced; but He was, and the more they would search the Old Testament the more they would understand. From now on, the Church was to draw from its treasury of the Law, the prophets, and the Psalms all that referred to Him.
Now all that was written of Me
In the law of Moses, and in the prophets,
And in the psalms, must be fulfilled.
Then He enlightened their minds,
To make them understand the Scriptures.
LUKE 24:44, 45
A new light made all things appear different from what they were before; they looked different in the light of the Resurrection from what they were in the previous darkness. It takes more than the light of the sun to read Moses and the prophets and the Psalms; some interior illumination, which is inseparable from good will and love, is also required. Several times Our Lord told His own autobiography, and in each instance without exception it referred to the atonement He would make between God and man. He now summarized His life for the last time, repeating that the Old Testament referred to Him as the Suffering but Conquering Servant.
So it was written, and so it was fitting
That Christ should suf er,
And should rise again from the dead on the third day.
LUKE 24:46
It is not His Sermon on the Mount that He would have remembered, but His Cross. There would have been no Gospel had there been no Cross; and the death on the Cross would have been useless for the removal of human guilt, if He had not risen from the dead. He said it behooved Him to suffer because He had to show the evil of sin, and evil is most manifest in the Crucifixion of Goodness. No greater darkness would ever descend upon the earth than that which fell upon Him on Calvary. In all other wars, there is generally a gray, or a mixture of good and evil, on both sides; but in the Crucifixion, there was black on one side and white on the other. Evil would never be stronger than it was on that particular day. For the worst thing that evil can do is not to bomb cities and to kill children and to wage wars; the worst thing that evil can do is to kill Goodness. Having been defeated in that, it could never be victorious again.
Goodness in the face of evil must suffer, for when love meets sin, it will be crucified. A God Who wears His Sacred Heart upon His sleeve, as Our Lord did when He became man, must be prepared to have human daws peck at it. But at the same time, Goodness used that very suffering as a condition of overcoming evil. Goodness took all the anger, wrath, and hate, and pleaded: “Forgive” it took life and offered it for another. Hence to Him it was expedient that He suffer in order to enter glory. Evil, conquered in its full armor and in the moment of its monumental momentum, might in the future win some battles, but it would never win the war.
No hope could be given to a wounded world by a Confucius, Buddha, or even a Christ who taught goodness and then rotted in the grave. No healing can be brought to broken wings by a humanism, which is brotherhood without tears; or by a gentle Christ Who has no source of knowledge distinct from any other teacher, and Who, in the end like them, could not burst the fetters of death, nor prove that truth crushed to earth may rise again.
This summary that Our Lord gave of His life threw down the challenge to men and took Him out of history. What assurance would there be that evil would not triumph over good? Suppose He was only a good man or the greatest moralist the world ever had, then what assurance would there be for the victory of virtue? What inspiration for sacrifice? If He, Who came to this earth to teach the dignity of the human soul, Who could challenge a sinful world to convict Him of sin, Who could at the moment of death forgive His enemies, had no other issue and destiny than to hang on a common tree with common criminals and thieves to make a Roman holiday, then each man may despairingly inquire: “If this is what happens to a good man, then why should one lead a good life?” In that case, the greatest of all injustices would go unredressed and the noblest of all lives would die unvindicated. Pay whatever compliments one may to His teaching, His patience under blows, His meekness before mobs—these eulogies do not make Him the Lord of death and life; they rather make these virtues vain, for they have no reward.
By saying that He had to suffer, Christ glorified His Father. Admire holiness as much as you please, but what is one to think of a God Who would look down on this spectacle of Innocence going to the gallows and not pull out the nails and put a sceptre there? Or a God Who would not send an angel to snatch a crown of thorns and place a garland there? Shall God be a party to saying that the noblest life that ever walked this earth is impotent before the evil deeds of men? What is humanity to think of human nature, if the white flower of a blameless life is trampled under the hobnail boots of Roman executioners, and then destined to decay like crushed flowers? Would it not send forth a greater stench because of its primal sweetness and make us hate not only the God Who had no care for truth and love, but even our fellow men for being a party to His death? If this is the end of goodness, then why be good at all? If this is what happens to justice, then let anarchy reign!
But if Our Lord took the worst the world had to offer, and then by the power of God rose above it; if He, the unarmed, could make war with no other weapon than goodness and pardon, so that the slain had the gain, and they who killed Him lost the day, then who should ever be without hope? Who shall ever despair in any momentary defeat by evil? Who shall fail to trust when he sees walking in the darkness the Risen One with glorious scars on hands and feet and side? The law He gave was clear: life is a struggle; unless there is a Cross in our lives, there will never be an empty tomb; unless there is the crown of thorns, there will never be the halo of light; unless there is a Good Friday, there will never be an Easter Sunday. When He said: “I have conquered the world,” He did not mean His followers would be immune from woes, pain, sorrow, and crucifixion. He gave no peace which promised a banishment from strife; for God hates peace in those who are destined for war. If the Heavenly Father did not spare His Son, He, the Heavenly Son, would not spare His disciples. What the Resurrection offered was not immunity from evil in the physical world, but immunity from sin in the soul.
The Divine Savior never said to His Apostles: “Be good and you will not suffer” but He did say: “In this world you shall have tribulation.” He told them also not to fear those that kill the body, but rather to fear those who can kill the soul. Now He told the Apostles that His life was a model for all of His followers; they were encouraged to take the worst this life had to offer with courage and serenity. He said that all sufferings were as the shade of “His hand outstretched caressingly.” No talisman was He to promise as security from trials; rather as a Captain He went into battle in order to inspire men to transfigure some of life’s greatest pains into the richest gains of the spiritual life. It was the Cross of Christ that raised the questions of life; it was the Resurrection that answered them. Not the feminine but the virile Christ is He Who unfurls before an evil world the pledge of victory in His own Body—the scar-spangled banner of Salvation. As the poet Edward Shillito has put it: “No false gods, immune from pain and sorrow, could console us in these days.”
JESUS OF THE SCARS
If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,
We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.
The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?
Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars we claim Thy grace.
If when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;
We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,
Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.
The other gods were strong, but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone. [1]
EDWARD SHILLITO, 1872–1948
[1] From the book entitled Masterpieces of Religious Verse, edited by James Dalton Morrison (Harper & Brothers, New York). Reprinted by permission.
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